RDC has worked his magic once again, not only overcoming the seemingly "WTF were they thinking" architecture of the OUYA controller, but also shrinking it down to a single board size of .75" x 1.1", with digital triggers and easy solder test point pads. The first run has been sent to OSHPark and got sent to the Fab house yesterday, so they are expecting to have the boards back by the 14th which means I won't see them until probably the 21st, but it'll hopefully be sooner.
Here is a Render of the PCB. This houses everything critical to make the controller work with just the BlueTooth Module from the top controller board. Since I'm not implementing the use if the analog triggers, this board also uses 10K resistors to make the triggers a simple on/off function. For all the games I played on the OUYA (and any system for the matter), the need of incremental steps for a "pressure sensitive" function has just not been there. I'm also not using the OUYA touch pad either because...well why?
But anyway, you really begin to appreciate the work that went into this when see how small this really is going to be.
I probably should have mentioned though, that RDC did all of this without a working OUYA to use for testing. This I know caused him much frustration, especially not knowing how the controller worked to begin with, nor could he test any of his theories. The thing with a lot of modern controllers is that they also can't be fully functional until they are paired with the host system, which means he was sent down many wrong paths that started in the right direction but appeared to be dead ends when he got to a certain point. But he still got through it which is freaking amazing. :congrats: :party:
The trigger pot system on the OUYA is also screwed three ways from Sunday. It's a basic 10K pot style, but the orientation style is ass backwards. On pot is straight and the other is placed at a 90 degree angle. This changes the values in which the controller reads a press and can cause a great deal of confusion if messed with. This is why I opted out of analog triggers. Below, the pic shows the 10K pot test to see if the triggers would work as an digital on/off which they did.
So now unfortunately we play the waiting game. The prints for the back half of the case are not going well from what I hear, so I may have to come up with something different but there's a nice two week window plus installation time of the controller module that progress can still be made on the back half of the case. Hoping this isn't causing any anxiety for my buddy Hail.
More updates soon!
